Democratic Republic of Congo: African Development Fund provides $12 million grant to develop financial market and drive financial inclusion | African Development Bank

The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the concessional lender of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a $12 million grant to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to support the country’s Financial Sector Development and Inclusion Support Project. to feed.

The funding will support the country’s financial sector reforms and improve financial inclusion for rural and vulnerable populations – in particular women and youth – and for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

In particular, the project will help mobilize long-term resources by supporting the establishment of a national development bank and a stock exchange, and by expanding the government bond market. It will also promote financial inclusion by supporting the interoperability of payment services and improving the technical and operational capacity of microfinance institutions and other electronic money issuers.

Setting up a payment incident center and strengthening the capacity of payment regulators and supervisors will strengthen the country’s financial stability. Project activities will be carried out with a view to increasing the resilience of the financial sector and reducing poverty in the DRC.

Nicolas Kazadi Kadima-Nzuji, Minister of Finance of the DRC, said the government was “happy with the approval of this important project by the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank. This project addresses the main objectives of our program of action, namely the establishing a national development bank, improving financial inclusion and strengthening the government securities market in the DRC.”

“We are pleased to support the development of financial markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Ahmed Attout, head of the Capital Markets Development Division of the African Development Bank Group. “This project plays a central role in the development of the government securities market. It will provide more liquidity and review key regulatory frameworks to mobilize long-term resources. The project will also help diversify funding sources for Congolese SMEs. large corporations and increase financial inclusion in the DRC,” he added.